Grizzard, Tom

ORAL HISTORY OF TOM GRIZZARD
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
January 24, 2012
Mr. McDaniel: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is January the 24th, 2012, and I am at the home of Mr. Tom Grizzard. And Tom, we are in I guess Harriman proper, aren't we?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Harriman address, but it's -
Mr. Grizzard: Harriman address, Harriman water, and -
Mr. McDaniel: It's Swan Pond Circle.
Mr. Grizzard: Swan Pond Circle.
Mr. McDaniel: Not far from the Kingston Steam Plant, I suppose.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: As a matter of fact, that's the way I came in, because I knew that was - even though I did get lost. [Laughter] Well, Tom, why don't you take just a minute or two and tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell me where you were born and where you grew up and something about your family.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay, to start off with, I'm 72 years old, and I've lived in the Harriman area for 72 years. So I've been here, wanna die here, and I go someplace hunting or fishing for a week or so, but I come back home. Don't know anything else.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, where was your family's home?
Mr. Grizzard: Our family's home was here in Harriman.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, here in Harriman?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup. Well, South Harriman, really.
Mr. McDaniel: South Harriman.
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh.
Mr. McDaniel: So where did you go to school?
Mr. Grizzard: I went to high school in Harriman. I went to Tennessee Wesleyan for a bachelor's degree and graduated in 1963, and I started working, and in the meantime I got my master's at the University of Tennessee.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, growing up - and you said you grew up in South Harriman.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was the South Harriman High School still there when you -
Mr. Grizzard: South Harriman High School was there. I went six years to the South Harriman grammar school. We went -
Mr. McDaniel: Which is now Bowers, I suppose. Or close to -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah, same -
Mr. McDaniel: Same location.
Mr. Grizzard: Mr. Raymond Bowers was the principal. But starting the seventh grade, I went to Harriman and graduated then in 1963. 1958, I'm sorry.
Mr. McDaniel: That's okay. So you grew up in this area.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: You've been here your whole life.
Mr. Grizzard: Whole life. I lived at Carlock Avenue, and then we moved out here in 1956. My mom and dad built a home, and I built my home that we're in now in 1965.
Mr. McDaniel: You say when you graduated from Harriman High School - now, did you have brothers and sisters?
Mr. Grizzard: Have two sisters. Both of them are older than I, and I like to rub that in. They like to say something about that.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, of course. Of course. But when you graduated high school, you went to Tennessee Wesleyan.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: In Athens.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: And what did you study there?
Mr. Grizzard: Biology -
Mr. McDaniel: Biology?
Mr. Grizzard: - was my degree.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, why biology?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I've always been interested in the outdoors, and I thought about getting in with the TWRA. I didn't do that. I had the opportunity to work at the Lab during my junior and senior year in college.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And that then sort of opened the door for me to stay on with them when I got my degree in the environmental sciences, and I was out in the field about every day.
Mr. McDaniel: Were you?
Mr. Grizzard: Had a great job, 31 and a half years, and I was in forestry and also the aquatic system.
Mr. McDaniel: We'll get to that in just a minute.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So while you were in college at Tennessee Wesleyan, you were studying biology, and you worked summers, did you say, at the Lab in Oak Ridge?
Mr. Grizzard: One summer, between my junior and senior year. And then after I graduated, I started there too.
Mr. McDaniel: You started there?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Was that just like an internship?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, that's what it's sort of called. ORNL put it on and -
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, was that something that you knew about already, or the college?
Mr. Grizzard: I think I had to write a little something in order to get that, and my interests were in a certain area, and I got a call, and there was an opening there in the Biology Environmental Sciences Division, and I was honored to get to do that.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, what did your father do?
Mr. Grizzard: My dad and mama both worked at the hosiery mill in Harriman. And it was a living. We made it.
Mr. McDaniel: That was a hard job, though, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: It was a hard job, and Mom and Dad were my buddies as well as my mom and dad.
Mr. McDaniel: And the hosiery mill, I guess, was out on the other end of town at that time.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir, the one where they worked was in town.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, was it?
Mr. Grizzard: Right back of Jerry Duncan Ford.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Grizzard: It's leveled now. It's not there. But that's where they worked. There were two hosiery mills, one we called - where my mom and dad worked - the old hosiery mill, and then the new hosiery mill is on out -
Mr. McDaniel: On out the other -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: - end of town. But I guess it was important, for them, for you to go to college, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Daddy said I would go to college, and if he had to, he would sit behind me. I mean, he actually said that.
Mr. McDaniel: Because he knew what kind of life the hosiery mill was, and he didn't want -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: - that for you, did he?
Mr. Grizzard: He didn't want that for me. And I'm very appreciative of it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. So when you graduated high school and you graduated college at Tennessee Wesleyan - which I guess Athens was not a whole lot different from Harriman, except that at a college, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Sort of laidback like Harriman, yup, you're right.
Mr. McDaniel: I went to Carson-Newman. I finished at Carson-Newman, and it was one of those towns you said you had to drive 30 minutes just to sin.
Mr. Grizzard: I started to go there. I didn't.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you? Okay. So you got a job right out of college at - oh, where now? What was your first job? Tell me about that.
Mr. Grizzard: It was a good job. I mean, hello Bill, I couldn't have asked anything better. One of the first things, we had a boat and we had traps set out, and the first responsibility was get the number ten of ten different species of fish and bring them in and put them on the grass, and then someone did studies with them.
Mr. McDaniel: So you got a job fishing, didn't you?
Mr. Grizzard: Oh, yeah, and I could hardly wait. This old boy was doing the main - well, I went out with him. He was a little bit grumpy. He griped about going out, and I could hardly wait. I wouldn't sleep at night, thinking, "Boy, what are we gonna get tomorrow?" And there were some areas that we caught our fish real quickly and would have to fall back, because it was in a big net. So that's what we did, and that was my job, and then I got -
Mr. McDaniel: Now, did you grow up hunting and fishing?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: That was something you liked and were used to, then.
Mr. Grizzard: And I'm 72 and I still do it.
Mr. McDaniel: You still do it.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that seemed like to be an ideal job.
Mr. Grizzard: It fit in.
Mr. McDaniel: So you said that you took the tenth fish...
Mr. Grizzard: No. I took ten fish of ten different species.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see, ten fish.
Mr. Grizzard: So a total of 100 fish and take back to the Lab, and someone else would process them to do studies of strontium, cesium, mercury. That was the big kick back then.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. And how often did you get those fish? Every day? Every week?
Mr. Grizzard: We did it until we got what we needed and then we started over again.
Mr. McDaniel: Started over again.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup. And then we - no, I guess it was the next year, I worked with a fella in aquatics, and we got water samples from Oak Ridge down to the Chickamauga Dam and studied the water for that.
Mr. McDaniel: So you stayed on the boat most of the time, didn't you?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, you couldn't beat it. Couldn't beat it.
Mr. McDaniel: And that was year-round?
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. After I graduated, I got into the biology lab, working with the Zonal Centrifuge, and we were doing work on microbial parts. So that was right after the summer program. And there was an opening then in Environmental - but it was called Ecology then. There was an opening, and a fella whom I worked sort of for the year before called and wanted to know if I wanted to come over there, and it'd be working with what's called Walker Branch Watershed, developing a watershed and laying out different things, research projects and plots and stuff. So I did that for about ten years.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McDaniel: And the Walker Branch Watershed, why don't you explain that just a little bit? What did that mean?
Mr. Grizzard: That's a -
Mr. McDaniel: Was that an existing water area?
Mr. Grizzard: It's a watershed 212 acres. One was about 120 acres, and one was 90 acres. And ideally and theoretically, all the water that comes down in a system, it comes down and it leaves, or it stays in the soil, or it stays in the plants and whatever. So there were a lot of studies of - we had five different rain-gauge plots, and we monitored the rain, and we got water samples, and we got samples underneath the leaves to see how much [leach in] and whatever. There were just a lot of different things. And the first thing, it took us about two years to set up the watershed so that it was a grid system. Every 264 feet, you had a grid 90 degrees. And we had research plots in there, and we had one-meter boxes that we collected samples that fell out onto the ground. We were just sort of doing an influx and outflow of nutrients in the system. So that was a good job for about ten years.
Mr. McDaniel: You did that for about ten years.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, what was the purpose of both your job in the summer and the watershed job? I mean, what was the fundamental purpose of doing that work for the Lab?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, my supervisor had to write proposals to get money to do what we did, and this would help us - what we did would show research of the deciduous and coniferous species, how nutrients came into a system, and if they hung up in the system in the different soil types or they left by the way - which the main thing was the streams. And we had the streams monitored, and we had what's called a weir. We had two weirs, and that monitored the flow amount of water that comes out and the nutrients in that water. So we tried to tie it into a nutrient cycling system. And there was a lot of research on stuff like that in the Northeast and in the Smokies. So we sort of did that type thing to show -
Mr. McDaniel: That was kind of fundamental environmental research, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: But kind of basic biological research.
Mr. Grizzard: Right. Right.
Mr. McDaniel: It probably didn't have a whole lot to do with the plant or any environmental issues or anything like that.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir, it was just on that area that they funded us money.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. So you did that, you did the watershed for about ten years.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: And then what did you do after that?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, did some different things. I went to inside the Lab, and we had an aquatic system that we were raising fish, and I was responsible for the Lab there at - was it Building 1503 or something?
Mr. McDaniel: Inside the Lab, you had -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: So tell me about the aquatic system. You raised fish, you raised plants, what?
Mr. Grizzard: Mainly fish was my responsibility. And, again, I sort of was a custodian for that type thing. The other people came in and did the research on things.
Mr. McDaniel: But you kind of managed the facility.
Mr. Grizzard: Right, right. And had a good job for 31 and a half years. People wondered why I left, but it was just time to go.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. So how long were you there at the facility with the fish?
Mr. Grizzard: About eight or ten more years. Now, I did go - from 1979 to 1986, I left our division because there was an opening, and I thought I'd like it, which I did - waste management, burial of - the burial grounds we had, the different burial grounds, and I was responsible for the burial grounds. And one of the things that struck in my mind, we got animals from Biology Division that were carcasses, and we buried them, as well as low-activity/low-level waste. Then when the ORNL and the other two plants let us deer hunt on the reservation - it was sort of an overkill, I feel. But if there were any contamination at all on the deer, you had to throw the whole deer away.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh.
Mr. McDaniel: Tell me a little bit about that, because I've heard stories about how to measure radiation or any contaminations on a deer. Tell me how that was done.
Mr. Grizzard: We had Biology involved, and we had TWRA involved. We had our Health Physics Division involved. And I didn't do any monitoring myself. We just dug the trenches and wrote down on a piece of paper what goes in that trench.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see. I see.
Mr. Grizzard: So I don't have knowledge to tell you exactly if they - I do know one fella who talked them out of his antlers. He wanted the big - he had a big rack and didn't wanna throw that away, but they did give him the rack.
Mr. McDaniel: Did they? You know, because what I've heard for years - I grew up in this area, and I've heard for years talk about that. They said - and, of course, this may be urban legend, but you should know this. They said antlers grow kind of like the rings of a tree, and that you can measure the exposures that that animal got per year by the antlers, looking at a cross-section of the antlers.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, in my mind - and I'm not an expert on it, but I would think that couldn't quite be true, because the deer shed their -
Mr. McDaniel: Try to sit up for me. There we go.
Mr. Grizzard: The deer shed their antlers annually.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh. So one year, next year it's bigger, but that year is over and he sheds them.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh. So deer shed antlers, and I don't know how we could say that that was the right way.
Mr. McDaniel: That's just one of those stories I've heard.
Mr. Grizzard: Now we can go back with the tree rings on trees, and I'm not an authority on that either, but there are people who have studied that way.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: And they put the trees in areas with contamination, and sometimes they inject them with different isotopes and see where it goes and how it leaves a system or stays in a system, again, through rainfall or whatever.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Over the course of your career out there, what are some things - if you could just pick a few things that resulted as part of the research that was done in your division, what are some things that you learned, that we learned because of that?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I learned a little bit from the standpoint that most of the time we sort of had a little overkill on the - the work that we did was very significant, but one of the studies on mercury and cesium and whatever, I think that was instrumental on finding out how that stuff, what it does in a system and where it goes and how it does.
Mr. McDaniel: I would imagine that your work in that division kind of did to the environment - did for the environment our knowledge base of what happens in the environment sort of like the Mouse House did with the knowledge base what happens in mammals.
Mr. Grizzard: In the - yes.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, a lot of people have heard of the Mouse House and what they did there and the results, which were important, are still important. But the Biology Division kind of did the same thing for our planet, for our environment, I would imagine.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, the Biology Division, the way I remember it, the Mouse House was there in 9207 or 9211 or whatever.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Grizzard: But there were a lot of good results that - well, the scientific journals all the time came out, and there was some very significant research that went on.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So what in the Biology Division - and you said you were in the Biology Division; is that correct?
Mr. Grizzard: For three years.
Mr. McDaniel: For three years. And then you moved to the -
Mr. Grizzard: Environmental Science, which was called Ecology back then.
Mr. McDaniel: Ecology, Environmental Science Division.
Mr. Grizzard: And then it expanded to Environmental Sciences.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: And heck, I guess we had 300 people, and everybody was doing their little job on certain research projects. So what my involvement was, mainly, was all in the research area, with exception of the waste management on the burial grounds and disposing of low-activity waste and storing of the higher-activity waste.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, you said you got your master's degree. Did you get that while you were working?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. It was a pretty good way to do it. I didn't lose money. I couldn't afford to quit work and go to school, so I made up my time going to school during the day and working late and weekends and whatever. And also, the Lab paid half my tuition. When I got my degree, they clamped it all together and gave me the other half.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: So that was pretty darn good that I didn't have an expense.
Mr. McDaniel: That is good. Now, how long did it take you to get your master's? Normally it would take -
Mr. Grizzard: Probably from my B.S. to my master's - from after I had my B.S. to when I started on my master's was about five years.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, and then once you started your master's, how long did it take you to get your master's?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, that was what I'm saying.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see. I see. Because you were working full-time at the same, too.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, but I took some ecology courses and plant courses, and I got to do my thesis there on Walker Branch Watershed. So it helped them, and I got to publish it and got my thesis out of that.
Mr. McDaniel: So you started on your master's just as soon as you started -
Mr. Grizzard: No.
Mr. McDaniel: - working there.
Mr. Grizzard: No, I didn't really do it that quickly. I waited a couple years.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. I understand. I understand. You were probably tired of school, probably wanted to work.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I had two young boys that I wanted to raise.
Mr. McDaniel: I understand. That's what I was going to ask you now. Where did you meet your wife?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, she's a Harriman-raised -
Mr. McDaniel: She's a Harriman?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah. We went to school. I'm two years older than she. I started dating her when I was a freshman, I guess, at Tennessee Wesleyan. And we married and have three children: two boys and a daughter. So anyway, she's lived in Harriman all of her life, and I've lived in Harriman all my life, and we've had a good life.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, I'm sure you can think back. There's probably some interesting stories or interesting things that happened in your career over the course of 30-something years that you could tell me.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I've always -
Mr. McDaniel: Unique people that you met, or something unique about the people?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, I will start off by saying I've always been one who enjoys athletics, and we drummed around and had about as good a softball team that we could ever have. I wasn't much of a volleyball player, and I wasn't much of a basketball player, but I really enjoyed softball. And we put together some of the winning teams over the years.
Mr. McDaniel: From the Lab or from -
Mr. Grizzard: From the Lab. See, the Lab - well, all three plants, if you worked at one of the plants, you could be on a ball team. And we drummed around and got to do that, so that was one of my highlights of my working career in that we played a lot of ball, and I did play ball with another team in Oak Ridge on different lines. But when you asked that, that made -
Mr. McDaniel: And who did you play? I mean, who did the -
Mr. Grizzard: Other people in the plant.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, other plant teams. I see.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. And some pretty good ball players in it. I mean, there's a lot of them that played college ball. But we had an enjoyable time, and the Recreation Department, Mr. Whitfield, he saw to it that we had a good program.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, where did you play? What field?
Mr. Grizzard: We played - what's that, Carl Yearwood?
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, you played Carl Yearwood.
Mr. Grizzard: And we also - the Lab had a ball field out at Carbide Park.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh, and we played there.
Mr. McDaniel: You played there.
Mr. Grizzard: So when you said that, I don't know if that's what you're asking about, but -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah.
Mr. Grizzard: - that sort of was a highlight of my -
Mr. McDaniel: Now, how long did you play? How many years did you play?
Mr. Grizzard: Oh, hello Bill.
Mr. McDaniel: Twenty?
Mr. Grizzard: Probably more than that. Probably more than that.
Mr. McDaniel: Really?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah, that'd be a good say, I guess. But anyway, for my private life, after ball playing, I started officiating.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And I'm a softball official now.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, are you?
Mr. Grizzard: And I enjoy it. Yeah. I officiate at some of the high school girls' softball, and did men and women leagues.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I was one of the executive producers of a film that was shot here in Roane County a few years ago about adult softball league, called The Boys of Summerville. Have you seen that?
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: I will get you a copy of that DVD.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: There's a fella in Harriman - and I'll take just a minute and tell you about this. There's a couple fellas in Harriman who I know, who are actors and writers, directors, because I'm involved in the film industry. I run the film festival in Oak Ridge every year. And their father, who was a big softball player - big, huge softball player - he passed away, and they did this kind of as a tribute to him. But it's about men's softball, and as a matter of fact, we shot on this baseball field that was out here by TVA.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: You know, the one that's covered up now or -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: - that's gone?
Mr. Grizzard: Fly ash, yup.
Mr. McDaniel: Yup. That's where we shot some of the scenes. And we shot over in the - what's the ball field you turn down by Christmas Lumber Company?
Mr. Grizzard: Flour Mill Flats.
Mr. McDaniel: Flour Mill Flats, we shot there -
Mr. Grizzard: And also they have - okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Yup.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So I'll get you a copy of that.
Mr. Grizzard: I'd love to have it.
Mr. McDaniel: It's a comedy.
Mr. Grizzard: I'd love to have it. But I will state that, if we're talking anything about the Kingston Steam Plant, I lived out in South Harriman and we had a baseball team. And there, when they were building the Kingston Steam Plant, somebody with TVA built a ball field next to where the men's dorms were, because men who work there, they live there during the week. And they had a ball field built for the youth program, and we'd go out and play, and they would come out to watch us.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: I was 10, 11, 12 years old.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: But that was a pretty good way to do that.
Mr. McDaniel: I'm sure it was.
Mr. Grizzard: The fellas, after they got off from work, they'd just go out, and most of them from a long way off and they wouldn't be going home.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, when you got your job in Oak Ridge, I bet you were kind of happy to get something that was close to home.
Mr. Grizzard: I was very fortunate.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, did you ever think about maybe having to go off someplace else?
Mr. Grizzard: I thought I would like to get into the wildlife management -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah, right. That's right.
Mr. Grizzard: - TWRA. But this came open, and I was very fortunate to have gotten on between my junior and senior year and then to have stayed on. Back then, there was quite a bit of research going on and quite a bit of money given to the research areas that we've been talking about.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: So it was just right down my alley. I never did have to move. I was 25 miles away, could go to work, and, again, I was very fortunate that my family was here.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure, sure. Now, did you spend much time in Oak Ridge, in the town?
Mr. Grizzard: Other than playing ball. We played ball about every night, one or two games. My wife would go shopping some in Oak Ridge. I am not one who can give good information on what all happened in Oak Ridge if it were not at a ball field.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. And getting something to eat.
Mr. Grizzard: And getting something to eat.
Mr. McDaniel: Because you always had to eat after the ballgame.
Mr. Grizzard: We always did, and, you know -
Mr. McDaniel: And where did you go?
Mr. Grizzard: McDonald's, mainly.
Mr. McDaniel: When it was on the Turnpike.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup. My two boys and daughter, we'd load up right after I got home. They got home from school, and we'd go to either one or two ballgames and we'd eat at night coming back, and I think - we were figuring out maybe it was $2.00 for the whole family back then.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, the McDonald's was about where - it was I guess about where Walgreens is now on the Turnpike?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. I think that's right. Right there.
Mr. McDaniel: It was right in that area.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Near what was called - that shopping center.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, yeah, near the - yeah, the shopping center. It wasn't very far. But that was the first McDonald's I remember.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And there was Dairy Queen on the West End. Was it there at that time?
Mr. Grizzard: I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly what all was there.
Mr. McDaniel: That's all right.
Mr. Grizzard: But yeah, we always stopped at McDonald's. The boys liked those burgers, $0.25 burgers.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure, sure. And then Shoney's came along. I remember going -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, that was a little bit too rich for me.
Mr. McDaniel: That was a little too rich, but I remember it was - I remember my mom and dad loading us kids up in the Impala and going to Shoney's to eat in Oak Ridge. We thought that was a treat. It was a treat.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. We were always in a rush to get home. Kids had to go to sleep, get ready to go to school.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, I understand.
Mr. Grizzard: Because it was about 45 minutes from my house to the ball field and then back home. And we'd play one or two games, and there goes our day.
Mr. McDaniel: There it is. Now, when you worked [phone ringing in background] - do you need to get that, or just let it ring?
Mr. Grizzard: We just let it ring. That won't interfere with -
Mr. McDaniel: Nah, it'll be fine. Okay. Now, did you always work days?
Mr. Grizzard: There were a few studies that I did, we were doing some moisture studies in a soil pit. And I had a little camper, and I brought it out there and did studies every hour for something like 72 hours.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: I was sleepy, but I did it. So most of the time I was dayshift with the work that we did.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, but occasionally you had to do something like that.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Now, also one of the studies I was involved with out at 0800 where they had some research plots - well, let's see now. Let me get it straight. I had to water plants daily, a certain amount, with certain nutrients. And I had to do that daily, whether it be Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. So I did that and working seven days a week for about six months. In order to do that, they let me take off four hours for every day that I worked over.
Mr. McDaniel: That you worked over.
Mr. Grizzard: So one year, I got a goose hunt and duck hunt and did a lot of things that -
Mr. McDaniel: You had months off, didn't you?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd have to go in every once in a while, but that was pretty good, for me.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Now, tell me about your fish, your aquatic center there that -
Mr. Grizzard: Okay. I think it's building 1503. Again, we had some long troughs, and we had some mainly small fish. One fella did some studies with tilapia. My responsibility was just to make sure that the water was coming and going and doing what it should.
Mr. McDaniel: That they didn't die.
Mr. Grizzard: That they didn't die, right.
Mr. McDaniel: Keep those fish alive.
Mr. Grizzard: That's right.
Mr. McDaniel: And healthy.
Mr. Grizzard: That's right.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Grizzard: Other people did the main research projects, and I was sort of, I think, the building coordinator or something.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, how many fish did you have at a time?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, they were real small fish, the feeder fish. I can't give you a good number in the smaller fish that we fed the other fish, and we had bass and...
Mr. McDaniel: Did you have 20?
Mr. Grizzard: Maybe 200.
Mr. McDaniel: Two hundred?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh, we had a bunch of different fish tanks with fish in them.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I bet that would've been an aquarium keeper's dream, wouldn't it, to be out there and look at that?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah. I do know that sometimes the water would shut for some reason, and I'd get a call from the shift supervisor, and I'd go up and I'd have to find out where the problem was, and -
Mr. McDaniel: Fix the pump.
Mr. Grizzard: - it really wasn't - that was about it.
Mr. McDaniel: Fix the pump, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: That was about it.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was there anything specific that you had to do? I mean, for those fish, did you have to - I mean, was there anything specific in the water? I mean, it wasn't like ultra clean or anything like that, was it?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, it was filtered.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it?
Mr. Grizzard: We had to do the filter. There's this one - I've forgotten the name of the company that had the filtering system.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But it was just good, clean, fresh water.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: It wasn't anything unique about it.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. No, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, they didn't dump, like, chemicals in there and see what happened to them.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. No, not in the studies I was involved with.
Mr. McDaniel: They might do that someplace else, but not there.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, that's right.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, who were some of the people that you worked with or worked for that stand out in your mind?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, my Division Director was a very good fella who was sometimes pretty grouchy, but he loved to do it that way. And everybody knew it. That was Stanley Auerbach. I don't know -
Mr. McDaniel: I have heard of him.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, he was a very good overseer of everything, but he got on a kick every once in a while, and if you didn't - like in the afternoon, you're supposed to roll up all your car windows, the government. And boy, if you had a vehicle assigned to you, the window wasn't rolled up, he'd make his little stroll around. The next morning he'd call in, "Tom Grizzard, come to the front office" or whoever. But may I tell you a good one about him?
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, go ahead.
Mr. Grizzard: Again, getting back to softball.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Grizzard: We -
Mr. McDaniel: Try to sit back if you can a little bit.
Mr. Grizzard: - had an environmental -
Mr. McDaniel: Try to sit back a little bit.
Mr. Grizzard: We had an Environmental Sciences Division ball team, and we ordered uniforms. And I think, truthfully, that it was sort of, from the standpoint of research, outerwear, and that's how it came in. But I got Dr. Auerbach a uniform.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And I took it in to him. He took me in this little back room. He said he'd never worn a ball uniform, and more or less how to wear it, and the leggings and whatever. And I enjoyed that.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: I enjoyed that. And he would come to our ballgames.
Mr. McDaniel: Really?
Mr. Grizzard: And I was coach, and I ask him one day if he wanted to coach first. "Oh, no, I can't do that, but I'll coach third if you want me to." So I said, "Okay." And he was there.
Mr. McDaniel: Really? So he'd never played ball or -
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. No, sir. But he -
Mr. McDaniel: That probably tickled him to death.
Mr. Grizzard: It did. It did. And I thought if you played ball, you need to be there and you need to be warmed up and you need to be ready to play by game time. And we had a couple fellas. Both of them had Ph.D.s, and they were pretty good ball players. But they were late or right on time without - and when they came in, I sort of chewed on them, being the coach. And the next morning Dr. Auerbach, over the intercom: "Tom Grizzard, come to the front office." And he applauded me fussing and getting after them, said, "That's the way to do it."
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Said, "Make them do what they need to do." And I really -
Mr. McDaniel: Well, good.¬¬
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. I thought -
Mr. McDaniel: Sounded like he liked you.
Mr. Grizzard: He liked everybody. He didn't tolerate much, but that was his makeup.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, he was the head of the Environmental -
Mr. Grizzard: Environmental Sciences. It was the Ecology when it started, and he was worldwide-known, and he was a good man.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that's an interesting story. That was an interesting story. Now, who are some of the other folks you worked with?
Mr. Grizzard: Bobby Van Hook was my Division Director. David Reichle was my Division Director. And Steven -
Mr. McDaniel: Now, Mr. Van Hook, he just lived down here in -
Mr. Grizzard: Kingston?
Mr. McDaniel: - Anglers Cove, didn't he?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Well, I don't know if -
Mr. McDaniel: Is it Anglers Cove?
Mr. Grizzard: - it's considered Anglers Cove. He lives sort of toward Midway. I'm not sure what that's called.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, does he? Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: I'm not sure - he has a lot of land, and he bought and traded with TW - oh, no -
Mr. McDaniel: TVA?
Mr. Grizzard: - TVA, and he said -
Mr. McDaniel: He's on my list. I can't get in touch with him, but he's on my list of people to interview.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, when we leave here, I'll give you a phone number that you can get him.
Mr. McDaniel: All right, that sounds good.
Mr. Grizzard: But we've hunted together, and we'd rabbit hunt and deer hunt, and the people who worked there, a lot of them, we've hunted together and we've had leases on land.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, speaking of hunting, you said you weren't really involved when they would hunt on the reservation to do, like, research or anything like that. Were you involved in that, and did they do that?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I think what you're alluding to is the deer hunts.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Grizzard: They had to pass through Health Physics.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see.
Mr. Grizzard: And there was a time period when I worked in Waste Management that the deer had to be sort of free -
Mr. McDaniel: They had to be checked out, right, right.
Mr. Grizzard: - of contamination. Yes. And if they weren't free of contamination, they were put in -
Mr. McDaniel: They were put into -
Mr. Grizzard: - sort of a biological trench.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was that something - you said that changed. They didn't used to not to allow it, I suppose.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, no, it's still the same, that I know of. They're all checked for contamination.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, do they -
Mr. Grizzard: And there's hardly any there now.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But did they do that on a regular basis? I'm sure there's more than just deer. There are other critters running around.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, you don't get to hunt anything else.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: And there was one study a few years ago. They couldn't find out - there were some hot spots in the plant, and it was from - and I'm not an authority on it, but there were frogs -
Mr. McDaniel: Frogs.
Mr. Grizzard: - that came from a contaminated pond and jumped around -
Mr. McDaniel: I've heard that story.
Mr. Grizzard: And it was a true thing, but it was after I retired.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it?
Mr. Grizzard: And I read it in the paper. That's pretty unique, you know?
Mr. McDaniel: That is pretty unique.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, Whiteoak Lake was a contaminated area, and they did some studies on the ducks and geese that alight there. And there was a place that if - well, they flew in there quite often, and somebody - I wasn't involved - had some sort of a shot that boomed and scared them off every few minutes.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: So they'd try to keep them from there.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, what lake did you say that was?
Mr. Grizzard: Whiteoak Lake.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, where is that located?
Mr. Grizzard: The main area where Interstate 40, and you go to the Lab or Lenoir City.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay. About -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah, it's that area right there -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: - between Melton Hill Dam -
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: - and the entrance to the Lab there.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: That's where they have those - it's on both sides of the road.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, that's where they had all the - you could drive by - used to be able to drive by there and it'd be covered with the green. It'd be completely covered. But that became - I guess that was an area that got some contamination, didn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: The lake did.
Mr. Grizzard: Now, also, sediment must've fallen out in the thing, but that's I guess one of the main areas that contaminated water got out in the Clinch River.
Mr. McDaniel: Exactly. Right, right, I understand. Well, is there anybody - there's a couple more things I wanted to ask you about. Let's finish up your time out at the Lab. Anybody else? Any -
Mr. Grizzard: Oh, I worked with two fellas. We got our work done. I was responsible for certain things, and they helped me: Bill Savage and Arnold Hunley. And we had a good working life, and people who'd see us, they'd think that we're goofing off, and we probably were, but we'd done our work. We'd been out in the field four hours and gotten it done. We came in to take a break. So you got to have, I think, some sort -
Mr. McDaniel: Can't be serious all the time, can you?
Mr. Grizzard: No. No. But my division directors have always been very supportive. And, again, I had a good 31 and a half years.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, is the work that you were doing out there, is that continued on? I mean, is it -
Mr. Grizzard: There were certain things. The Walker Branch Watershed is still going on, and there's different people doing research studies, and they're going from those fifth-acre plots that we built or we cordoned off. So the aquatics is still going. They're probably doing different research studies. But the buildings -
Mr. McDaniel: But a lot of the same things are still there and -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: - research continues.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. Now, the Walker Branch Watershed, the 212 acres - they were gonna do some studies on - there were two watersheds - and do something on one and then [airily] fertilize over one of them and see how that reacted and if the growth on trees and a bunch of stuff, but that never did come. They sort of got away from that.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was that on the reservation? Was the Walker Branch -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: It was on the reservation.
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh. It's out - you ever heard of Katie's Kitchen?
Mr. McDaniel: Mm-hmm.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay, it's in that area.
Mr. McDaniel: It's in that area? Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: We had a little research lab there at Katie's Kitchen.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And that's where we brought our samples in to weigh them and dry them and grind them and put them in a solution and take them to Analytical Chemistry to look and see what was there. So just getting the samples wasn't the only thing we did. We had to get them ready to -
Mr. McDaniel: You had to prepare them for the -
Mr. Grizzard: Had to get them ready to look and see what was what.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Sure.
Mr. Grizzard: And same thing with water samples.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Right. Now, did they ever come back after they were analyzed, and said, "We want you to do something else, get it a different way, or do -"
Mr. Grizzard: Well, no, not really a different way. My supervisor sometimes would have us doing different things.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure, I understand. I understand.
Mr. Grizzard: But most of the people that I worked with years and years ago are long gone.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, so what year did you retire? [Phone ringing in background] Let's wait a minute. Let's let that phone ring, and then you can answer that question.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Because I'm not sure it'd be able to hear you talk well.
[Side conversation]
Mr. Grizzard: Okay, your question?
Mr. McDaniel: So what year did you retire?
Mr. Grizzard: I retired in 1994.
Mr. McDaniel: In '94.
Mr. Grizzard: The last day of '94.
Mr. McDaniel: So what have you been doing since then?
Mr. Grizzard: Fishing and hunting, doing whatever, farming a little bit, and I have my son, who has the machine shop, and like today I ran to Oliver Springs for him and picked up something.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Helping him out a little bit.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't retire to do nothing.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: And hello Bill, there's always something to do. My wife went to get one of our grandchildren. I have seven grandchildren. One of them lives as far away as Rockwood.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: The other six live a mile or less.
Mr. McDaniel: There you go.
Mr. Grizzard: So that's exactly the way I would've wanted it, my family being close to here. We live on an area that my mama's family owned.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: And when my granddaddy died, he gave each of the children 20 or 40 acres, and we are on the 20 acres my mama had. And good fishing right down here.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, you're close to the steam plant here.
Mr. Grizzard: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McDaniel: You're just near the river.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup.
Mr. McDaniel: I say the Kingston Steam Plant, TVA. Let's talk a little bit about the ash spill and how it affected you, because it affected a lot of people in this area.
Mr. Grizzard: I think it affected everybody very adversely, maybe not so - but, I mean, there was a year that I didn't get to go out in my boat crappie fishing.
Mr. McDaniel: I bet that about killed you, didn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, yeah. I mean, hello Bill, we would be near the dredging. They dredged on up above our house a mile. I like their electricity. My son does quite a bit of work for them, and I don't want anything to happen to that because that's his livelihood. But I really think that TVA somewhere fouled up in their -
Mr. McDaniel: They dropped the ball -
Mr. Grizzard: - engineering.
Mr. McDaniel: - along the way someplace, didn't they?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. But there was so many times that for the - well, a year and a half, you want to go to Kingston maybe twice that day. Three times, there would be trucks or trains that you had to wait 20 minutes for and whatever, and right now the demolishing of these homes, 64 nice homes.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: And I think one of -
Mr. McDaniel: Those are the homes that TVA bought, isn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: They bought and they're tearing down, and the people that sold were probably pretty well happy, because there were two estimates given, and TVA paid them twice, 100 percent above that.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: So they should've been -
Mr. McDaniel: They should've been satisfied.
Mr. Grizzard: Now, if you're getting a little farther away, they did 25 percent above the appraisers.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: But I can't figure out how TVA marks a line that you're affected or you're not affected. I'll tell you one little one right quick.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, go ahead.
Mr. Grizzard: This fella and his wife - no, this fella and his sister-in-law have 40 acres that join our land down here. We've got about 150 acres out here. But they bought, and he lives right outside Chicago, and she lives in Arizona, and they bought the land speculating to sell and make a little money, which is fine. And then this fly ash spill came about and knocked everything in the head. You couldn't sell anything out here for anything.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: But TVA - that 40 acres they bought, she had 15 acres and the brother-in-law had 25 acres, separated by a fence. TVA talked with her, bought her 15 acres. That fence line -
Mr. McDaniel: Was the line.
Mr. Grizzard: - was the line, and they wouldn't buy his 25 acres.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, man.
Mr. Grizzard: And the kicker there is that they had her sign an agreement that she couldn't tell what all she got, and the whole family's mad at her.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I'm sure.
Mr. Grizzard: But how does TVA say "You're affected, and you're not affected"?
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, exactly. This whole area was affected.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: The whole area was affected.
Mr. Grizzard: Adversely affected. And they say they're going to make us well and all this, but I'd rather have it like it was before.
Mr. McDaniel: So have you seen a difference in your fishing since the spill?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, no. Well, I'll back up a little bit. I'm not anti-people, but there're not nearly as many people who fish here who did, and there's a sandbar down here that - they have a band and all this stuff in there during the summer, and there're not nearly as many people who come down there.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: So from a recreation standpoint, this part of Watts Bar is not as -
Mr. McDaniel: As active.
Mr. Grizzard: - as active as used to be.
Mr. McDaniel: Used to be.
Mr. Grizzard: But there are a lot of things that the fly ash spill stick in people's craws.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Was there anything else you wanna talk about? Anybody you wanto to tell stories on? Here's your chance. [Laughter]
Mr. Grizzard: Better not - I know. [Laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: Here's your chance.
Mr. Grizzard: I've had a good life. I enjoy getting back to where I worked. Once a year, every Christmas, I go to see people. Boy, there's a lot of them gone, and there's a lot of them I don't even know.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that's what happens.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah, I've been gone 18 years, and they dwindle.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, when you retired, how many people worked at - do you know about how many people worked at the Lab?
Mr. Grizzard: I would say 4,000 to 5,000.
Mr. McDaniel: Four to five thousand?
Mr. Grizzard: And they did have a reduction. What was it, some sort of a voluntary RIF? And that's what I took. Took most of my money and bought some land in Middle Tennessee.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right? Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: So we've got some hunting land out there and a cabin. But I've had a good life. I've had a good working life, and I enjoy people, and I think I have a lot of friends. And I can't say anything negative about where I worked and whom I worked with, and that's pretty darn good that something like that for a working life that -
Mr. McDaniel: That you enjoyed getting up and go to work every day.
Mr. Grizzard: Enjoyed it, and it wasn't 30 minutes away, and like you said a while ago, I was very fortunate to have gotten that job.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. All right, well, Mr. Grizzard, well, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I have enjoyed it and enjoyed meeting you, and hope this will help you in whatever you do.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, it's going to give people a chance to learn something about not only you, but about the area and the work that was done at Oak Ridge -
Mr. Grizzard: That's good, and I think -
Mr. McDaniel: - over the years.
Mr. Grizzard: And when you edit and whatever -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, there won't be any editing. This is just - we trim the beginning and the end, and that's it. We let you say what you wanna say.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, occasionally I'll have a little buyers' remorse. Somebody'll call me a couple, three days later and say, "I don't think I should've said that." [Laughter]
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I think if one were to sum up my life, it would be that I've had a good one, and good family, and good working relationship, and that was a third of my life.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure. Of course. Of course.
Mr. Grizzard: I think it would be bad if a person didn't have a good working - I mean, some people grab - you can get them with a silver spoon.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: And at the Lab, there are people who fuss, but you couldn't run them off.
Mr. McDaniel: No. [Laughter] As much as you tried, you couldn't run them off.
Mr. Grizzard: No, that's right. Well, I enjoyed having you, enjoyed meeting you, and -
Mr. McDaniel: Well, thank you very much. We certainly appreciate it.
Mr. Grizzard: - hope this comes out okay on your behalf, and -
Mr. McDaniel: I'm sure it'll be just fine. It'll be good to put in our collection.
[End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF TOM GRIZZARD
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
January 24, 2012
Mr. McDaniel: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is January the 24th, 2012, and I am at the home of Mr. Tom Grizzard. And Tom, we are in I guess Harriman proper, aren't we?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Harriman address, but it's -
Mr. Grizzard: Harriman address, Harriman water, and -
Mr. McDaniel: It's Swan Pond Circle.
Mr. Grizzard: Swan Pond Circle.
Mr. McDaniel: Not far from the Kingston Steam Plant, I suppose.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: As a matter of fact, that's the way I came in, because I knew that was - even though I did get lost. [Laughter] Well, Tom, why don't you take just a minute or two and tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell me where you were born and where you grew up and something about your family.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay, to start off with, I'm 72 years old, and I've lived in the Harriman area for 72 years. So I've been here, wanna die here, and I go someplace hunting or fishing for a week or so, but I come back home. Don't know anything else.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, where was your family's home?
Mr. Grizzard: Our family's home was here in Harriman.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, here in Harriman?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup. Well, South Harriman, really.
Mr. McDaniel: South Harriman.
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh.
Mr. McDaniel: So where did you go to school?
Mr. Grizzard: I went to high school in Harriman. I went to Tennessee Wesleyan for a bachelor's degree and graduated in 1963, and I started working, and in the meantime I got my master's at the University of Tennessee.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, growing up - and you said you grew up in South Harriman.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was the South Harriman High School still there when you -
Mr. Grizzard: South Harriman High School was there. I went six years to the South Harriman grammar school. We went -
Mr. McDaniel: Which is now Bowers, I suppose. Or close to -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah, same -
Mr. McDaniel: Same location.
Mr. Grizzard: Mr. Raymond Bowers was the principal. But starting the seventh grade, I went to Harriman and graduated then in 1963. 1958, I'm sorry.
Mr. McDaniel: That's okay. So you grew up in this area.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: You've been here your whole life.
Mr. Grizzard: Whole life. I lived at Carlock Avenue, and then we moved out here in 1956. My mom and dad built a home, and I built my home that we're in now in 1965.
Mr. McDaniel: You say when you graduated from Harriman High School - now, did you have brothers and sisters?
Mr. Grizzard: Have two sisters. Both of them are older than I, and I like to rub that in. They like to say something about that.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, of course. Of course. But when you graduated high school, you went to Tennessee Wesleyan.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: In Athens.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: And what did you study there?
Mr. Grizzard: Biology -
Mr. McDaniel: Biology?
Mr. Grizzard: - was my degree.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, why biology?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I've always been interested in the outdoors, and I thought about getting in with the TWRA. I didn't do that. I had the opportunity to work at the Lab during my junior and senior year in college.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And that then sort of opened the door for me to stay on with them when I got my degree in the environmental sciences, and I was out in the field about every day.
Mr. McDaniel: Were you?
Mr. Grizzard: Had a great job, 31 and a half years, and I was in forestry and also the aquatic system.
Mr. McDaniel: We'll get to that in just a minute.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So while you were in college at Tennessee Wesleyan, you were studying biology, and you worked summers, did you say, at the Lab in Oak Ridge?
Mr. Grizzard: One summer, between my junior and senior year. And then after I graduated, I started there too.
Mr. McDaniel: You started there?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Was that just like an internship?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, that's what it's sort of called. ORNL put it on and -
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, was that something that you knew about already, or the college?
Mr. Grizzard: I think I had to write a little something in order to get that, and my interests were in a certain area, and I got a call, and there was an opening there in the Biology Environmental Sciences Division, and I was honored to get to do that.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, what did your father do?
Mr. Grizzard: My dad and mama both worked at the hosiery mill in Harriman. And it was a living. We made it.
Mr. McDaniel: That was a hard job, though, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: It was a hard job, and Mom and Dad were my buddies as well as my mom and dad.
Mr. McDaniel: And the hosiery mill, I guess, was out on the other end of town at that time.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir, the one where they worked was in town.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, was it?
Mr. Grizzard: Right back of Jerry Duncan Ford.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Grizzard: It's leveled now. It's not there. But that's where they worked. There were two hosiery mills, one we called - where my mom and dad worked - the old hosiery mill, and then the new hosiery mill is on out -
Mr. McDaniel: On out the other -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: - end of town. But I guess it was important, for them, for you to go to college, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Daddy said I would go to college, and if he had to, he would sit behind me. I mean, he actually said that.
Mr. McDaniel: Because he knew what kind of life the hosiery mill was, and he didn't want -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: - that for you, did he?
Mr. Grizzard: He didn't want that for me. And I'm very appreciative of it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. So when you graduated high school and you graduated college at Tennessee Wesleyan - which I guess Athens was not a whole lot different from Harriman, except that at a college, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Sort of laidback like Harriman, yup, you're right.
Mr. McDaniel: I went to Carson-Newman. I finished at Carson-Newman, and it was one of those towns you said you had to drive 30 minutes just to sin.
Mr. Grizzard: I started to go there. I didn't.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you? Okay. So you got a job right out of college at - oh, where now? What was your first job? Tell me about that.
Mr. Grizzard: It was a good job. I mean, hello Bill, I couldn't have asked anything better. One of the first things, we had a boat and we had traps set out, and the first responsibility was get the number ten of ten different species of fish and bring them in and put them on the grass, and then someone did studies with them.
Mr. McDaniel: So you got a job fishing, didn't you?
Mr. Grizzard: Oh, yeah, and I could hardly wait. This old boy was doing the main - well, I went out with him. He was a little bit grumpy. He griped about going out, and I could hardly wait. I wouldn't sleep at night, thinking, "Boy, what are we gonna get tomorrow?" And there were some areas that we caught our fish real quickly and would have to fall back, because it was in a big net. So that's what we did, and that was my job, and then I got -
Mr. McDaniel: Now, did you grow up hunting and fishing?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: That was something you liked and were used to, then.
Mr. Grizzard: And I'm 72 and I still do it.
Mr. McDaniel: You still do it.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that seemed like to be an ideal job.
Mr. Grizzard: It fit in.
Mr. McDaniel: So you said that you took the tenth fish...
Mr. Grizzard: No. I took ten fish of ten different species.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see, ten fish.
Mr. Grizzard: So a total of 100 fish and take back to the Lab, and someone else would process them to do studies of strontium, cesium, mercury. That was the big kick back then.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. And how often did you get those fish? Every day? Every week?
Mr. Grizzard: We did it until we got what we needed and then we started over again.
Mr. McDaniel: Started over again.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup. And then we - no, I guess it was the next year, I worked with a fella in aquatics, and we got water samples from Oak Ridge down to the Chickamauga Dam and studied the water for that.
Mr. McDaniel: So you stayed on the boat most of the time, didn't you?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, you couldn't beat it. Couldn't beat it.
Mr. McDaniel: And that was year-round?
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. After I graduated, I got into the biology lab, working with the Zonal Centrifuge, and we were doing work on microbial parts. So that was right after the summer program. And there was an opening then in Environmental - but it was called Ecology then. There was an opening, and a fella whom I worked sort of for the year before called and wanted to know if I wanted to come over there, and it'd be working with what's called Walker Branch Watershed, developing a watershed and laying out different things, research projects and plots and stuff. So I did that for about ten years.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McDaniel: And the Walker Branch Watershed, why don't you explain that just a little bit? What did that mean?
Mr. Grizzard: That's a -
Mr. McDaniel: Was that an existing water area?
Mr. Grizzard: It's a watershed 212 acres. One was about 120 acres, and one was 90 acres. And ideally and theoretically, all the water that comes down in a system, it comes down and it leaves, or it stays in the soil, or it stays in the plants and whatever. So there were a lot of studies of - we had five different rain-gauge plots, and we monitored the rain, and we got water samples, and we got samples underneath the leaves to see how much [leach in] and whatever. There were just a lot of different things. And the first thing, it took us about two years to set up the watershed so that it was a grid system. Every 264 feet, you had a grid 90 degrees. And we had research plots in there, and we had one-meter boxes that we collected samples that fell out onto the ground. We were just sort of doing an influx and outflow of nutrients in the system. So that was a good job for about ten years.
Mr. McDaniel: You did that for about ten years.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, what was the purpose of both your job in the summer and the watershed job? I mean, what was the fundamental purpose of doing that work for the Lab?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, my supervisor had to write proposals to get money to do what we did, and this would help us - what we did would show research of the deciduous and coniferous species, how nutrients came into a system, and if they hung up in the system in the different soil types or they left by the way - which the main thing was the streams. And we had the streams monitored, and we had what's called a weir. We had two weirs, and that monitored the flow amount of water that comes out and the nutrients in that water. So we tried to tie it into a nutrient cycling system. And there was a lot of research on stuff like that in the Northeast and in the Smokies. So we sort of did that type thing to show -
Mr. McDaniel: That was kind of fundamental environmental research, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: But kind of basic biological research.
Mr. Grizzard: Right. Right.
Mr. McDaniel: It probably didn't have a whole lot to do with the plant or any environmental issues or anything like that.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir, it was just on that area that they funded us money.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. So you did that, you did the watershed for about ten years.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: And then what did you do after that?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, did some different things. I went to inside the Lab, and we had an aquatic system that we were raising fish, and I was responsible for the Lab there at - was it Building 1503 or something?
Mr. McDaniel: Inside the Lab, you had -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: So tell me about the aquatic system. You raised fish, you raised plants, what?
Mr. Grizzard: Mainly fish was my responsibility. And, again, I sort of was a custodian for that type thing. The other people came in and did the research on things.
Mr. McDaniel: But you kind of managed the facility.
Mr. Grizzard: Right, right. And had a good job for 31 and a half years. People wondered why I left, but it was just time to go.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. So how long were you there at the facility with the fish?
Mr. Grizzard: About eight or ten more years. Now, I did go - from 1979 to 1986, I left our division because there was an opening, and I thought I'd like it, which I did - waste management, burial of - the burial grounds we had, the different burial grounds, and I was responsible for the burial grounds. And one of the things that struck in my mind, we got animals from Biology Division that were carcasses, and we buried them, as well as low-activity/low-level waste. Then when the ORNL and the other two plants let us deer hunt on the reservation - it was sort of an overkill, I feel. But if there were any contamination at all on the deer, you had to throw the whole deer away.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh.
Mr. McDaniel: Tell me a little bit about that, because I've heard stories about how to measure radiation or any contaminations on a deer. Tell me how that was done.
Mr. Grizzard: We had Biology involved, and we had TWRA involved. We had our Health Physics Division involved. And I didn't do any monitoring myself. We just dug the trenches and wrote down on a piece of paper what goes in that trench.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see. I see.
Mr. Grizzard: So I don't have knowledge to tell you exactly if they - I do know one fella who talked them out of his antlers. He wanted the big - he had a big rack and didn't wanna throw that away, but they did give him the rack.
Mr. McDaniel: Did they? You know, because what I've heard for years - I grew up in this area, and I've heard for years talk about that. They said - and, of course, this may be urban legend, but you should know this. They said antlers grow kind of like the rings of a tree, and that you can measure the exposures that that animal got per year by the antlers, looking at a cross-section of the antlers.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, in my mind - and I'm not an expert on it, but I would think that couldn't quite be true, because the deer shed their -
Mr. McDaniel: Try to sit up for me. There we go.
Mr. Grizzard: The deer shed their antlers annually.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh. So one year, next year it's bigger, but that year is over and he sheds them.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh. So deer shed antlers, and I don't know how we could say that that was the right way.
Mr. McDaniel: That's just one of those stories I've heard.
Mr. Grizzard: Now we can go back with the tree rings on trees, and I'm not an authority on that either, but there are people who have studied that way.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: And they put the trees in areas with contamination, and sometimes they inject them with different isotopes and see where it goes and how it leaves a system or stays in a system, again, through rainfall or whatever.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Over the course of your career out there, what are some things - if you could just pick a few things that resulted as part of the research that was done in your division, what are some things that you learned, that we learned because of that?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I learned a little bit from the standpoint that most of the time we sort of had a little overkill on the - the work that we did was very significant, but one of the studies on mercury and cesium and whatever, I think that was instrumental on finding out how that stuff, what it does in a system and where it goes and how it does.
Mr. McDaniel: I would imagine that your work in that division kind of did to the environment - did for the environment our knowledge base of what happens in the environment sort of like the Mouse House did with the knowledge base what happens in mammals.
Mr. Grizzard: In the - yes.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, a lot of people have heard of the Mouse House and what they did there and the results, which were important, are still important. But the Biology Division kind of did the same thing for our planet, for our environment, I would imagine.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, the Biology Division, the way I remember it, the Mouse House was there in 9207 or 9211 or whatever.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Grizzard: But there were a lot of good results that - well, the scientific journals all the time came out, and there was some very significant research that went on.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So what in the Biology Division - and you said you were in the Biology Division; is that correct?
Mr. Grizzard: For three years.
Mr. McDaniel: For three years. And then you moved to the -
Mr. Grizzard: Environmental Science, which was called Ecology back then.
Mr. McDaniel: Ecology, Environmental Science Division.
Mr. Grizzard: And then it expanded to Environmental Sciences.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: And heck, I guess we had 300 people, and everybody was doing their little job on certain research projects. So what my involvement was, mainly, was all in the research area, with exception of the waste management on the burial grounds and disposing of low-activity waste and storing of the higher-activity waste.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, you said you got your master's degree. Did you get that while you were working?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. It was a pretty good way to do it. I didn't lose money. I couldn't afford to quit work and go to school, so I made up my time going to school during the day and working late and weekends and whatever. And also, the Lab paid half my tuition. When I got my degree, they clamped it all together and gave me the other half.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: So that was pretty darn good that I didn't have an expense.
Mr. McDaniel: That is good. Now, how long did it take you to get your master's? Normally it would take -
Mr. Grizzard: Probably from my B.S. to my master's - from after I had my B.S. to when I started on my master's was about five years.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, and then once you started your master's, how long did it take you to get your master's?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, that was what I'm saying.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see. I see. Because you were working full-time at the same, too.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, but I took some ecology courses and plant courses, and I got to do my thesis there on Walker Branch Watershed. So it helped them, and I got to publish it and got my thesis out of that.
Mr. McDaniel: So you started on your master's just as soon as you started -
Mr. Grizzard: No.
Mr. McDaniel: - working there.
Mr. Grizzard: No, I didn't really do it that quickly. I waited a couple years.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. I understand. I understand. You were probably tired of school, probably wanted to work.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I had two young boys that I wanted to raise.
Mr. McDaniel: I understand. That's what I was going to ask you now. Where did you meet your wife?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, she's a Harriman-raised -
Mr. McDaniel: She's a Harriman?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah. We went to school. I'm two years older than she. I started dating her when I was a freshman, I guess, at Tennessee Wesleyan. And we married and have three children: two boys and a daughter. So anyway, she's lived in Harriman all of her life, and I've lived in Harriman all my life, and we've had a good life.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, I'm sure you can think back. There's probably some interesting stories or interesting things that happened in your career over the course of 30-something years that you could tell me.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I've always -
Mr. McDaniel: Unique people that you met, or something unique about the people?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, I will start off by saying I've always been one who enjoys athletics, and we drummed around and had about as good a softball team that we could ever have. I wasn't much of a volleyball player, and I wasn't much of a basketball player, but I really enjoyed softball. And we put together some of the winning teams over the years.
Mr. McDaniel: From the Lab or from -
Mr. Grizzard: From the Lab. See, the Lab - well, all three plants, if you worked at one of the plants, you could be on a ball team. And we drummed around and got to do that, so that was one of my highlights of my working career in that we played a lot of ball, and I did play ball with another team in Oak Ridge on different lines. But when you asked that, that made -
Mr. McDaniel: And who did you play? I mean, who did the -
Mr. Grizzard: Other people in the plant.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, other plant teams. I see.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. And some pretty good ball players in it. I mean, there's a lot of them that played college ball. But we had an enjoyable time, and the Recreation Department, Mr. Whitfield, he saw to it that we had a good program.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, where did you play? What field?
Mr. Grizzard: We played - what's that, Carl Yearwood?
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, you played Carl Yearwood.
Mr. Grizzard: And we also - the Lab had a ball field out at Carbide Park.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh, and we played there.
Mr. McDaniel: You played there.
Mr. Grizzard: So when you said that, I don't know if that's what you're asking about, but -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah.
Mr. Grizzard: - that sort of was a highlight of my -
Mr. McDaniel: Now, how long did you play? How many years did you play?
Mr. Grizzard: Oh, hello Bill.
Mr. McDaniel: Twenty?
Mr. Grizzard: Probably more than that. Probably more than that.
Mr. McDaniel: Really?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah, that'd be a good say, I guess. But anyway, for my private life, after ball playing, I started officiating.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And I'm a softball official now.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, are you?
Mr. Grizzard: And I enjoy it. Yeah. I officiate at some of the high school girls' softball, and did men and women leagues.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I was one of the executive producers of a film that was shot here in Roane County a few years ago about adult softball league, called The Boys of Summerville. Have you seen that?
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: I will get you a copy of that DVD.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: There's a fella in Harriman - and I'll take just a minute and tell you about this. There's a couple fellas in Harriman who I know, who are actors and writers, directors, because I'm involved in the film industry. I run the film festival in Oak Ridge every year. And their father, who was a big softball player - big, huge softball player - he passed away, and they did this kind of as a tribute to him. But it's about men's softball, and as a matter of fact, we shot on this baseball field that was out here by TVA.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: You know, the one that's covered up now or -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: - that's gone?
Mr. Grizzard: Fly ash, yup.
Mr. McDaniel: Yup. That's where we shot some of the scenes. And we shot over in the - what's the ball field you turn down by Christmas Lumber Company?
Mr. Grizzard: Flour Mill Flats.
Mr. McDaniel: Flour Mill Flats, we shot there -
Mr. Grizzard: And also they have - okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Yup.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So I'll get you a copy of that.
Mr. Grizzard: I'd love to have it.
Mr. McDaniel: It's a comedy.
Mr. Grizzard: I'd love to have it. But I will state that, if we're talking anything about the Kingston Steam Plant, I lived out in South Harriman and we had a baseball team. And there, when they were building the Kingston Steam Plant, somebody with TVA built a ball field next to where the men's dorms were, because men who work there, they live there during the week. And they had a ball field built for the youth program, and we'd go out and play, and they would come out to watch us.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: I was 10, 11, 12 years old.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: But that was a pretty good way to do that.
Mr. McDaniel: I'm sure it was.
Mr. Grizzard: The fellas, after they got off from work, they'd just go out, and most of them from a long way off and they wouldn't be going home.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, when you got your job in Oak Ridge, I bet you were kind of happy to get something that was close to home.
Mr. Grizzard: I was very fortunate.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, did you ever think about maybe having to go off someplace else?
Mr. Grizzard: I thought I would like to get into the wildlife management -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah, right. That's right.
Mr. Grizzard: - TWRA. But this came open, and I was very fortunate to have gotten on between my junior and senior year and then to have stayed on. Back then, there was quite a bit of research going on and quite a bit of money given to the research areas that we've been talking about.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: So it was just right down my alley. I never did have to move. I was 25 miles away, could go to work, and, again, I was very fortunate that my family was here.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure, sure. Now, did you spend much time in Oak Ridge, in the town?
Mr. Grizzard: Other than playing ball. We played ball about every night, one or two games. My wife would go shopping some in Oak Ridge. I am not one who can give good information on what all happened in Oak Ridge if it were not at a ball field.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. And getting something to eat.
Mr. Grizzard: And getting something to eat.
Mr. McDaniel: Because you always had to eat after the ballgame.
Mr. Grizzard: We always did, and, you know -
Mr. McDaniel: And where did you go?
Mr. Grizzard: McDonald's, mainly.
Mr. McDaniel: When it was on the Turnpike.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup. My two boys and daughter, we'd load up right after I got home. They got home from school, and we'd go to either one or two ballgames and we'd eat at night coming back, and I think - we were figuring out maybe it was $2.00 for the whole family back then.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, the McDonald's was about where - it was I guess about where Walgreens is now on the Turnpike?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. I think that's right. Right there.
Mr. McDaniel: It was right in that area.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Near what was called - that shopping center.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, yeah, near the - yeah, the shopping center. It wasn't very far. But that was the first McDonald's I remember.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And there was Dairy Queen on the West End. Was it there at that time?
Mr. Grizzard: I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly what all was there.
Mr. McDaniel: That's all right.
Mr. Grizzard: But yeah, we always stopped at McDonald's. The boys liked those burgers, $0.25 burgers.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure, sure. And then Shoney's came along. I remember going -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, that was a little bit too rich for me.
Mr. McDaniel: That was a little too rich, but I remember it was - I remember my mom and dad loading us kids up in the Impala and going to Shoney's to eat in Oak Ridge. We thought that was a treat. It was a treat.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. We were always in a rush to get home. Kids had to go to sleep, get ready to go to school.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, I understand.
Mr. Grizzard: Because it was about 45 minutes from my house to the ball field and then back home. And we'd play one or two games, and there goes our day.
Mr. McDaniel: There it is. Now, when you worked [phone ringing in background] - do you need to get that, or just let it ring?
Mr. Grizzard: We just let it ring. That won't interfere with -
Mr. McDaniel: Nah, it'll be fine. Okay. Now, did you always work days?
Mr. Grizzard: There were a few studies that I did, we were doing some moisture studies in a soil pit. And I had a little camper, and I brought it out there and did studies every hour for something like 72 hours.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: I was sleepy, but I did it. So most of the time I was dayshift with the work that we did.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, but occasionally you had to do something like that.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Now, also one of the studies I was involved with out at 0800 where they had some research plots - well, let's see now. Let me get it straight. I had to water plants daily, a certain amount, with certain nutrients. And I had to do that daily, whether it be Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. So I did that and working seven days a week for about six months. In order to do that, they let me take off four hours for every day that I worked over.
Mr. McDaniel: That you worked over.
Mr. Grizzard: So one year, I got a goose hunt and duck hunt and did a lot of things that -
Mr. McDaniel: You had months off, didn't you?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd have to go in every once in a while, but that was pretty good, for me.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Now, tell me about your fish, your aquatic center there that -
Mr. Grizzard: Okay. I think it's building 1503. Again, we had some long troughs, and we had some mainly small fish. One fella did some studies with tilapia. My responsibility was just to make sure that the water was coming and going and doing what it should.
Mr. McDaniel: That they didn't die.
Mr. Grizzard: That they didn't die, right.
Mr. McDaniel: Keep those fish alive.
Mr. Grizzard: That's right.
Mr. McDaniel: And healthy.
Mr. Grizzard: That's right.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Grizzard: Other people did the main research projects, and I was sort of, I think, the building coordinator or something.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, how many fish did you have at a time?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, they were real small fish, the feeder fish. I can't give you a good number in the smaller fish that we fed the other fish, and we had bass and...
Mr. McDaniel: Did you have 20?
Mr. Grizzard: Maybe 200.
Mr. McDaniel: Two hundred?
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh, we had a bunch of different fish tanks with fish in them.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I bet that would've been an aquarium keeper's dream, wouldn't it, to be out there and look at that?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah. I do know that sometimes the water would shut for some reason, and I'd get a call from the shift supervisor, and I'd go up and I'd have to find out where the problem was, and -
Mr. McDaniel: Fix the pump.
Mr. Grizzard: - it really wasn't - that was about it.
Mr. McDaniel: Fix the pump, wasn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: That was about it.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was there anything specific that you had to do? I mean, for those fish, did you have to - I mean, was there anything specific in the water? I mean, it wasn't like ultra clean or anything like that, was it?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, it was filtered.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it?
Mr. Grizzard: We had to do the filter. There's this one - I've forgotten the name of the company that had the filtering system.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But it was just good, clean, fresh water.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: It wasn't anything unique about it.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. No, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, they didn't dump, like, chemicals in there and see what happened to them.
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. No, not in the studies I was involved with.
Mr. McDaniel: They might do that someplace else, but not there.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, that's right.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, who were some of the people that you worked with or worked for that stand out in your mind?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, my Division Director was a very good fella who was sometimes pretty grouchy, but he loved to do it that way. And everybody knew it. That was Stanley Auerbach. I don't know -
Mr. McDaniel: I have heard of him.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, he was a very good overseer of everything, but he got on a kick every once in a while, and if you didn't - like in the afternoon, you're supposed to roll up all your car windows, the government. And boy, if you had a vehicle assigned to you, the window wasn't rolled up, he'd make his little stroll around. The next morning he'd call in, "Tom Grizzard, come to the front office" or whoever. But may I tell you a good one about him?
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, go ahead.
Mr. Grizzard: Again, getting back to softball.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Grizzard: We -
Mr. McDaniel: Try to sit back if you can a little bit.
Mr. Grizzard: - had an environmental -
Mr. McDaniel: Try to sit back a little bit.
Mr. Grizzard: We had an Environmental Sciences Division ball team, and we ordered uniforms. And I think, truthfully, that it was sort of, from the standpoint of research, outerwear, and that's how it came in. But I got Dr. Auerbach a uniform.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And I took it in to him. He took me in this little back room. He said he'd never worn a ball uniform, and more or less how to wear it, and the leggings and whatever. And I enjoyed that.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: I enjoyed that. And he would come to our ballgames.
Mr. McDaniel: Really?
Mr. Grizzard: And I was coach, and I ask him one day if he wanted to coach first. "Oh, no, I can't do that, but I'll coach third if you want me to." So I said, "Okay." And he was there.
Mr. McDaniel: Really? So he'd never played ball or -
Mr. Grizzard: No, sir. No, sir. But he -
Mr. McDaniel: That probably tickled him to death.
Mr. Grizzard: It did. It did. And I thought if you played ball, you need to be there and you need to be warmed up and you need to be ready to play by game time. And we had a couple fellas. Both of them had Ph.D.s, and they were pretty good ball players. But they were late or right on time without - and when they came in, I sort of chewed on them, being the coach. And the next morning Dr. Auerbach, over the intercom: "Tom Grizzard, come to the front office." And he applauded me fussing and getting after them, said, "That's the way to do it."
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: Said, "Make them do what they need to do." And I really -
Mr. McDaniel: Well, good.¬¬
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. I thought -
Mr. McDaniel: Sounded like he liked you.
Mr. Grizzard: He liked everybody. He didn't tolerate much, but that was his makeup.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, he was the head of the Environmental -
Mr. Grizzard: Environmental Sciences. It was the Ecology when it started, and he was worldwide-known, and he was a good man.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that's an interesting story. That was an interesting story. Now, who are some of the other folks you worked with?
Mr. Grizzard: Bobby Van Hook was my Division Director. David Reichle was my Division Director. And Steven -
Mr. McDaniel: Now, Mr. Van Hook, he just lived down here in -
Mr. Grizzard: Kingston?
Mr. McDaniel: - Anglers Cove, didn't he?
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Well, I don't know if -
Mr. McDaniel: Is it Anglers Cove?
Mr. Grizzard: - it's considered Anglers Cove. He lives sort of toward Midway. I'm not sure what that's called.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, does he? Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: I'm not sure - he has a lot of land, and he bought and traded with TW - oh, no -
Mr. McDaniel: TVA?
Mr. Grizzard: - TVA, and he said -
Mr. McDaniel: He's on my list. I can't get in touch with him, but he's on my list of people to interview.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, when we leave here, I'll give you a phone number that you can get him.
Mr. McDaniel: All right, that sounds good.
Mr. Grizzard: But we've hunted together, and we'd rabbit hunt and deer hunt, and the people who worked there, a lot of them, we've hunted together and we've had leases on land.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, speaking of hunting, you said you weren't really involved when they would hunt on the reservation to do, like, research or anything like that. Were you involved in that, and did they do that?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I think what you're alluding to is the deer hunts.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Grizzard: They had to pass through Health Physics.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see.
Mr. Grizzard: And there was a time period when I worked in Waste Management that the deer had to be sort of free -
Mr. McDaniel: They had to be checked out, right, right.
Mr. Grizzard: - of contamination. Yes. And if they weren't free of contamination, they were put in -
Mr. McDaniel: They were put into -
Mr. Grizzard: - sort of a biological trench.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was that something - you said that changed. They didn't used to not to allow it, I suppose.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, no, it's still the same, that I know of. They're all checked for contamination.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, do they -
Mr. Grizzard: And there's hardly any there now.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But did they do that on a regular basis? I'm sure there's more than just deer. There are other critters running around.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, you don't get to hunt anything else.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: And there was one study a few years ago. They couldn't find out - there were some hot spots in the plant, and it was from - and I'm not an authority on it, but there were frogs -
Mr. McDaniel: Frogs.
Mr. Grizzard: - that came from a contaminated pond and jumped around -
Mr. McDaniel: I've heard that story.
Mr. Grizzard: And it was a true thing, but it was after I retired.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it?
Mr. Grizzard: And I read it in the paper. That's pretty unique, you know?
Mr. McDaniel: That is pretty unique.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, Whiteoak Lake was a contaminated area, and they did some studies on the ducks and geese that alight there. And there was a place that if - well, they flew in there quite often, and somebody - I wasn't involved - had some sort of a shot that boomed and scared them off every few minutes.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: So they'd try to keep them from there.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, what lake did you say that was?
Mr. Grizzard: Whiteoak Lake.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, where is that located?
Mr. Grizzard: The main area where Interstate 40, and you go to the Lab or Lenoir City.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay. About -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah, it's that area right there -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: - between Melton Hill Dam -
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: - and the entrance to the Lab there.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: That's where they have those - it's on both sides of the road.
Mr. Grizzard: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, that's where they had all the - you could drive by - used to be able to drive by there and it'd be covered with the green. It'd be completely covered. But that became - I guess that was an area that got some contamination, didn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: The lake did.
Mr. Grizzard: Now, also, sediment must've fallen out in the thing, but that's I guess one of the main areas that contaminated water got out in the Clinch River.
Mr. McDaniel: Exactly. Right, right, I understand. Well, is there anybody - there's a couple more things I wanted to ask you about. Let's finish up your time out at the Lab. Anybody else? Any -
Mr. Grizzard: Oh, I worked with two fellas. We got our work done. I was responsible for certain things, and they helped me: Bill Savage and Arnold Hunley. And we had a good working life, and people who'd see us, they'd think that we're goofing off, and we probably were, but we'd done our work. We'd been out in the field four hours and gotten it done. We came in to take a break. So you got to have, I think, some sort -
Mr. McDaniel: Can't be serious all the time, can you?
Mr. Grizzard: No. No. But my division directors have always been very supportive. And, again, I had a good 31 and a half years.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, is the work that you were doing out there, is that continued on? I mean, is it -
Mr. Grizzard: There were certain things. The Walker Branch Watershed is still going on, and there's different people doing research studies, and they're going from those fifth-acre plots that we built or we cordoned off. So the aquatics is still going. They're probably doing different research studies. But the buildings -
Mr. McDaniel: But a lot of the same things are still there and -
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: - research continues.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. Now, the Walker Branch Watershed, the 212 acres - they were gonna do some studies on - there were two watersheds - and do something on one and then [airily] fertilize over one of them and see how that reacted and if the growth on trees and a bunch of stuff, but that never did come. They sort of got away from that.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, was that on the reservation? Was the Walker Branch -
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: It was on the reservation.
Mr. Grizzard: Uh-huh. It's out - you ever heard of Katie's Kitchen?
Mr. McDaniel: Mm-hmm.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay, it's in that area.
Mr. McDaniel: It's in that area? Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: We had a little research lab there at Katie's Kitchen.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you?
Mr. Grizzard: And that's where we brought our samples in to weigh them and dry them and grind them and put them in a solution and take them to Analytical Chemistry to look and see what was there. So just getting the samples wasn't the only thing we did. We had to get them ready to -
Mr. McDaniel: You had to prepare them for the -
Mr. Grizzard: Had to get them ready to look and see what was what.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Sure.
Mr. Grizzard: And same thing with water samples.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Right. Now, did they ever come back after they were analyzed, and said, "We want you to do something else, get it a different way, or do -"
Mr. Grizzard: Well, no, not really a different way. My supervisor sometimes would have us doing different things.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure, I understand. I understand.
Mr. Grizzard: But most of the people that I worked with years and years ago are long gone.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, so what year did you retire? [Phone ringing in background] Let's wait a minute. Let's let that phone ring, and then you can answer that question.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Because I'm not sure it'd be able to hear you talk well.
[Side conversation]
Mr. Grizzard: Okay, your question?
Mr. McDaniel: So what year did you retire?
Mr. Grizzard: I retired in 1994.
Mr. McDaniel: In '94.
Mr. Grizzard: The last day of '94.
Mr. McDaniel: So what have you been doing since then?
Mr. Grizzard: Fishing and hunting, doing whatever, farming a little bit, and I have my son, who has the machine shop, and like today I ran to Oliver Springs for him and picked up something.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Helping him out a little bit.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't retire to do nothing.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: And hello Bill, there's always something to do. My wife went to get one of our grandchildren. I have seven grandchildren. One of them lives as far away as Rockwood.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: The other six live a mile or less.
Mr. McDaniel: There you go.
Mr. Grizzard: So that's exactly the way I would've wanted it, my family being close to here. We live on an area that my mama's family owned.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: And when my granddaddy died, he gave each of the children 20 or 40 acres, and we are on the 20 acres my mama had. And good fishing right down here.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, you're close to the steam plant here.
Mr. Grizzard: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McDaniel: You're just near the river.
Mr. Grizzard: Yup.
Mr. McDaniel: I say the Kingston Steam Plant, TVA. Let's talk a little bit about the ash spill and how it affected you, because it affected a lot of people in this area.
Mr. Grizzard: I think it affected everybody very adversely, maybe not so - but, I mean, there was a year that I didn't get to go out in my boat crappie fishing.
Mr. McDaniel: I bet that about killed you, didn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, yeah. I mean, hello Bill, we would be near the dredging. They dredged on up above our house a mile. I like their electricity. My son does quite a bit of work for them, and I don't want anything to happen to that because that's his livelihood. But I really think that TVA somewhere fouled up in their -
Mr. McDaniel: They dropped the ball -
Mr. Grizzard: - engineering.
Mr. McDaniel: - along the way someplace, didn't they?
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir. But there was so many times that for the - well, a year and a half, you want to go to Kingston maybe twice that day. Three times, there would be trucks or trains that you had to wait 20 minutes for and whatever, and right now the demolishing of these homes, 64 nice homes.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: And I think one of -
Mr. McDaniel: Those are the homes that TVA bought, isn't it?
Mr. Grizzard: They bought and they're tearing down, and the people that sold were probably pretty well happy, because there were two estimates given, and TVA paid them twice, 100 percent above that.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Grizzard: So they should've been -
Mr. McDaniel: They should've been satisfied.
Mr. Grizzard: Now, if you're getting a little farther away, they did 25 percent above the appraisers.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: But I can't figure out how TVA marks a line that you're affected or you're not affected. I'll tell you one little one right quick.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, go ahead.
Mr. Grizzard: This fella and his wife - no, this fella and his sister-in-law have 40 acres that join our land down here. We've got about 150 acres out here. But they bought, and he lives right outside Chicago, and she lives in Arizona, and they bought the land speculating to sell and make a little money, which is fine. And then this fly ash spill came about and knocked everything in the head. You couldn't sell anything out here for anything.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: But TVA - that 40 acres they bought, she had 15 acres and the brother-in-law had 25 acres, separated by a fence. TVA talked with her, bought her 15 acres. That fence line -
Mr. McDaniel: Was the line.
Mr. Grizzard: - was the line, and they wouldn't buy his 25 acres.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, man.
Mr. Grizzard: And the kicker there is that they had her sign an agreement that she couldn't tell what all she got, and the whole family's mad at her.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I'm sure.
Mr. Grizzard: But how does TVA say "You're affected, and you're not affected"?
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, exactly. This whole area was affected.
Mr. Grizzard: Yes, sir.
Mr. McDaniel: The whole area was affected.
Mr. Grizzard: Adversely affected. And they say they're going to make us well and all this, but I'd rather have it like it was before.
Mr. McDaniel: So have you seen a difference in your fishing since the spill?
Mr. Grizzard: Well, no. Well, I'll back up a little bit. I'm not anti-people, but there're not nearly as many people who fish here who did, and there's a sandbar down here that - they have a band and all this stuff in there during the summer, and there're not nearly as many people who come down there.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, really?
Mr. Grizzard: So from a recreation standpoint, this part of Watts Bar is not as -
Mr. McDaniel: As active.
Mr. Grizzard: - as active as used to be.
Mr. McDaniel: Used to be.
Mr. Grizzard: But there are a lot of things that the fly ash spill stick in people's craws.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Was there anything else you wanna talk about? Anybody you wanto to tell stories on? Here's your chance. [Laughter]
Mr. Grizzard: Better not - I know. [Laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: Here's your chance.
Mr. Grizzard: I've had a good life. I enjoy getting back to where I worked. Once a year, every Christmas, I go to see people. Boy, there's a lot of them gone, and there's a lot of them I don't even know.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that's what happens.
Mr. Grizzard: Yeah. Yeah, I've been gone 18 years, and they dwindle.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, when you retired, how many people worked at - do you know about how many people worked at the Lab?
Mr. Grizzard: I would say 4,000 to 5,000.
Mr. McDaniel: Four to five thousand?
Mr. Grizzard: And they did have a reduction. What was it, some sort of a voluntary RIF? And that's what I took. Took most of my money and bought some land in Middle Tennessee.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right? Okay.
Mr. Grizzard: So we've got some hunting land out there and a cabin. But I've had a good life. I've had a good working life, and I enjoy people, and I think I have a lot of friends. And I can't say anything negative about where I worked and whom I worked with, and that's pretty darn good that something like that for a working life that -
Mr. McDaniel: That you enjoyed getting up and go to work every day.
Mr. Grizzard: Enjoyed it, and it wasn't 30 minutes away, and like you said a while ago, I was very fortunate to have gotten that job.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. All right, well, Mr. Grizzard, well, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us.
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I have enjoyed it and enjoyed meeting you, and hope this will help you in whatever you do.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, it's going to give people a chance to learn something about not only you, but about the area and the work that was done at Oak Ridge -
Mr. Grizzard: That's good, and I think -
Mr. McDaniel: - over the years.
Mr. Grizzard: And when you edit and whatever -
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, there won't be any editing. This is just - we trim the beginning and the end, and that's it. We let you say what you wanna say.
Mr. Grizzard: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, occasionally I'll have a little buyers' remorse. Somebody'll call me a couple, three days later and say, "I don't think I should've said that." [Laughter]
Mr. Grizzard: Well, I think if one were to sum up my life, it would be that I've had a good one, and good family, and good working relationship, and that was a third of my life.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure. Of course. Of course.
Mr. Grizzard: I think it would be bad if a person didn't have a good working - I mean, some people grab - you can get them with a silver spoon.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure, sure.
Mr. Grizzard: And at the Lab, there are people who fuss, but you couldn't run them off.
Mr. McDaniel: No. [Laughter] As much as you tried, you couldn't run them off.
Mr. Grizzard: No, that's right. Well, I enjoyed having you, enjoyed meeting you, and -
Mr. McDaniel: Well, thank you very much. We certainly appreciate it.
Mr. Grizzard: - hope this comes out okay on your behalf, and -
Mr. McDaniel: I'm sure it'll be just fine. It'll be good to put in our collection.
[End of Interview]